scholarly journals 2018: A watershed year for psychedelic science

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 205032451987228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob S Aday ◽  
Christopher C Davoli ◽  
Emily K Bloesch

While interest in the study of psychedelic drugs has increased over much of the last decade, in this article, we argue that 2018 marked the true turning point for the field. Substantive advances in the scientific, public, and regulatory communities in 2018 significantly elevated the status and long-term outlook of psychedelic science, particularly in the United States. Advances in the scientific community can be attributed to impactful research applications of psychedelics as well as acknowledgement in preeminent journals. In the public sphere, Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind was a commercial hit and spurred thought-provoking, positive media coverage on psychedelics. Unprecedented psychedelic ballot initiatives in the United States were representative of changes in public interest. Finally, regulatory bodies began to acknowledge psychedelic science in earnest in 2018, as evidenced by the designation of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment-resistant depression by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In short, 2018 was a seminal year for psychedelic science.

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Eric O. Silva ◽  
Matthew B. Flynn

Although the United States has long been criticized for its treatment of migrants, the family separations that resulted from the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy drew particularly intense approbation and much media coverage in June 2018. One way to understand the conflict over this policy is to view it as a stigma contest where the status of a number of identities (migrant, immigration advocate, captor, policy apologist) are subject to a liminal stigma. Recent scholarship has documented how internet commenters disparage certain identities as they defend others. Through a qualitative content analysis of 172 opinion articles published in U.S. newspapers between 2009 and 2020, this article examines the ways that ideational stigmatization of immigrant detainees, captors, and nativists has and has not varied by time and arena of the public sphere. We find that many of the condemnations and denials found online are also prominent in editorials and op-eds. (e.g., detention as cruel, detainees as noncriminals, captors as racist, detainees as nonvictims,). The commentary section of U.S. newspapers, however, tended to defend the detainees and condemn their captors and nativist citizens. These findings provide a fuller record of how immigration detention and family separation were constructed during the Trump administration and a deeper understanding for the fervor of U.S. nativists.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 839-845

The eloquent statement on the status of Negro medical care and education in the United States by the eminent anatomist, Dr. W. Montague Cobb (Brown America's Medical Diaspora: A Paradox of Democracy, in The Pediatrician and The Public, Pediatrics 3:854, 1949) requires the attention of all physicians interested in the distribution of medical care. Although pediatricians cannot begin to assume responsibility for this entire problem, it is possible to demonstrate leadership in the same manner in which the Academy study of infant and child health services provided leadership to the profession and the public. We refer specifically to an extension of training facilities in pediatrics for Negro physicians. Certainly 15 certified Negro pediatricians in a country with 14,000,000 Negro people represents a serious discrepancy in the distribution of training facilities. Admittedly most of the problem has its origin in the distribution of training facilities for undergraduate students and the basic problems responsible for this situation. However, we have observed—as has Dr. Cobb—that many Negro physicians desiring training in pediatrics (as well as other specialties) are discouraged from applying for training because of what seems to be a dearth of positions open to them. It has been our impression, however, that many centers would consider Negroes for training appointments if qualified applicants applied. Would it not be advisable, therefore, for the American Board of Pediatrics to circularize the approved training centers in pediatrics in order to establish a roster of those centers which would consider Negro applicants for training positions?


Stalking ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. M. Phillips

Celebrities have become targets of potentially violent stalkers who instill fear by their relentless pursuit and, in some reported cases, threatened risk of violence. Celebrity stalking may evolve to planned, often violent attacks on intentionally selected targets. The causes of these incidents are complex, and frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning a contrived relationship between the target and stalker. Similar dynamics can be at play for presidential stalkers. Becoming the focus of someone’s delusional obsession is a risk for anyone living in the public eye. Planned attacks by stalkers, however, are not confined to internationally prominent public officials and celebrities. Some of the same themes emerge on a more local level when public figures become the object of pursuit. Celebrity and presidential stalkers often do not neatly fit any of the typologies that have evolved to codify our understanding of the motivation and special characteristics of stalking. Clinicians are often unaware of a “zone of risk” that extends beyond the delusional love object and can lead to the injury of others in addition to the attempted or accomplished homicide of a celebrity or presidential target. Most people can resist the temptation to intrude on a celebrity’s privacy—celebrity stalkers do not. This chapter explores celebrity status, as seen by the public and in the mind of the would-be assailant, as a unique factor in stalking cases that raises issues of clinical relevance and unique typologies. Special attention is given to the behaviors and motivations of individuals who have stalked the presidents of the United States. Many celebrities become targets of stalkers who relentlessly pursue and frighten them and who, in some cases, threaten violence. Though each case of celebrity stalking is unique and complex, such incidents frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning the contrived relationship between the stalker and victim. Stalking is not confined solely to well-known figures, of course. However, it is the very nature of celebrity—the status and the visibility—that attracts the benign (if voyeuristic) attention of an adoring public and the ominous interest of the stalker. Obsessional following of celebrities is not a new phenomenon in the United States.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Scheper Hughes ◽  
James Kyung-Jin Lee ◽  
Amanda Lucia ◽  
S.Romi Mukherjee

California is experiencing a proliferation of public religious celebrations like never before. The authors focus on four public celebrations: the throwing of colors during Holi, an annual pilgrimage to Manzanar, the Peruvian celebration of El Señor de Los Milagros, and Noche de Altares. Even as these and many other similar festivals simultaneously represent the irruption and interruption of the sacred in the public sphere, these festivals reflect the multi-religious character of immigration. These public rituals say something about the pursuit of belonging in California and in the United States within an increasingly diverse and multicultural landscape. Those who participate together as intimate strangers are often seeking only a temporary affiliation, perhaps a place for a moment to engage one another beyond the context of the marketplace. In sharing in these religious and cross-cultural experiences, participants become enmeshed in the complicated and vibrant diversity of California, up close and personal, as physical as the bodies encountered there.


Author(s):  
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

This epilogue comments on the changes within the Polish American community and the Polish-language press during the most recent decades, including the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of letter-writing. It also poses questions about the legacy and memory of Paryski in Toledo, Ohio, and in Polonia scholarship. Paryski's life and career were based on his intelligence, determination, and energy. He believed that Poles in the United States, as in Poland, must benefit from education, and that education was not necessarily the same as formal schooling. Anybody could embark on the path to self-improvement if they read and wrote. Long before the Internet changed the way we communicate, Paryski and other ethnic editors effectively adopted and practiced the concept of debate within the public sphere in the media. Ameryka-Echo's “Corner for Everybody” was an embodiment of this concept and allowed all to express themselves in their own language and to write what was on their minds.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Williams ◽  
Martijn Schoonvelde

Democratic governance requires that policy outcomes and public demand for policy be linked. While studies have shown empirical support for such a relationship in various policy domains, empirical evidence also indicates that the public is relatively unaware of policy outputs. This raises a puzzle: Why do policy outputs influence public attitudes if the public knows little about them?MethodsThis study seeks to address this paradox by examining the conditioning role of media coverage. We rely on data derived from the Policy Agendas Project in the United States, allowing us to analyze the relationship between policy outcomes, public preferences, and newspaper content across a long span of time (1972–2007).ResultsOur results indicate that public policy preferences respond to policy outputs, and that this relationship is strengthened by greater media attention to a policy area. Importantly, our findings also indicate that without media attention to a policy area, there is no direct effect of policy outputs on public demand for policy.ConclusionsMedia coverage appears to be a key factor for public responsiveness to occur. In the absence of policy coverage by the media, public responsiveness to policy outputs is greatly reduced.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Eid ◽  
Jenna Bresolin Slade

The United States experienced a core-shaking tumble from their pedestal of superpower at the beginning of the 21st century, facing three intertwined crises which revealed a need for change: the financial system collapse, lack of proper healthcare and government turmoil, and growing impatience with the War on Terror. This paper explores the American governments’ and citizens’ use of social network sites (SNS), namely Facebook and YouTube, to conceptualize and debate about national crises, in order to bring about social change, a notion that is synonymous with societal improvement on a national level. Drawing on democratic theories of communication, the public sphere, and emerging scholarship on the Right to Communicate, this study reveals the advantageous nature of SNS for political means: from citizen to citizen, government to citizen, and citizen to government. Furthermore, SNS promote government transparency, and provide citizens with a forum to pose questions to the White House, exchange ideas, and generate goals and strategies necessary for social change. While it remains the government’s responsibility to promote such exchanges, the onus remains with citizens to extend their participation to active engagement outside of SNS if social change is to occur. The Obama Administration’s unique affinity to SNS usage is explored to extrapolate knowledge of SNS in a political context during times of crises.


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